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Let it snow!

Who says you can't have snowmen at Christmastime when you live in a tropical climate?

I got the idea for these cookies from a Japanese food book I bought earlier this year called "Character Ippai no Okashi" (ISBN 4-8347-1739-9) by Yukiko Brenek.

She used sliced dried mango and cherry for the nose, eyes and buttons and slivered almonds for the arms. I used dried papaya and cranberries for mine. I didn't want to do the conversions for the recipe so I used this almond horn one instead and it worked just fine, although the cookies did expand quite a bit. I think any cookie recipe that doesn't bake up brown should work great, like a sugar or shortbread cookie.

Preheat oven to 325F. In large bowl combine powdered sugar and butter. Beat at medium speed until creamy. Add egg yolks and vanilla extract; continue beating until well blended. Reduce speed to low. Add flour, almonds, cream of tartar and baking soda. Continue beating until well mixed. Refridgerate dough until hard enough to form into firm balls.

Shape the dough into little balls and add a small amount of water between the two balls to join them. Apply dried papaya for nose, thin slices/pieces of dried cranberries for eyes, mouth and buttons and slivered almonds for the arms. A toothpick helps to pick up the various dried fruit bit and apply it to cookie. (Note: This is a very soft cookie recipe and the dough tends to spread easily when baked. Since we live in Hawaii I shaped my cookies and then put them in the fridge for a while before baking them to help prevent them from spreading out too much in the oven.)

Bake for about 8-10 minutes. Cool completely before sifting powdered sugar over cookies.

Here's Buddy's version of us as a snow family. Note the legs on his snowmen. This addition was necessary for them to be able to walk off the plates and into our mouths. Yum!

They look so adorable and delicious!! The recipe sounds something like one of my faves- Sandies. I love Buddy's version with the little legs. ;-) Sounds like exactly something that Bossy would do, too!

I dont usually comment in your journal, because I made a feed to read it here: http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=my_lil_mochi. In fact, I never miss an entry. Ijust love your blog! When I saw this on my 'friend's page', I loudly exclaimed, I WANT TO BITE THEIR HEADS OFF!! My neighbors asked me what excited me so!

ps...wheee! I just checked that linked page and 4 other people have joined since i first created the LJ syndication. Congrats.